UCLA UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology Title Dance Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5142h0db Journal UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1) Author Meyer-Dietrich, Erika Publication Date 2009-08-07 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California DANCE الرقص Erika Meyer-Dietrich EDITORS WILLEKE WENDRICH Editor-in-Chief Area Editor Material Culture, Art, and Architecture University of California, Los Angeles JACCO DIELEMAN Editor University of California, Los Angeles ELIZABETH FROOD Editor University of Oxford JOHN BAINES Senior Editorial Consultant University of Oxford Short Citation: Meyer-Dietrich 2009, Dance. UEE. Full Citation: Meyer-Dietrich, Erika, 2009, Dance. In Willeke Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz001ndh48 1134 Version 1, August 2009 http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz001ndh48 DANCE الرقص Erika Meyer-Dietrich Tanz Danse According to the Egyptian iconographical and textual sources, dance is performed by animals, human beings (dwarfs, men, women, and children appear in the reliefs), the bas of Pe, the deceased king or individual, the living king in a divine role, and gods and goddesses. Problems concerning the classification, representation, and interpretation of dance in ancient Egypt are addressed here by structuring our knowledge through a focus on the performer, resulting in an overview of the dancer, the occasion of the performance, the location of the performance, and the imagined space that the dancing produces. These four criteria can be attested in natural-environmental, royal, funeral, and religious-festival contexts. The ancient Egyptian perceived dance in relation to leisure activities, gendered space, and also the negotiation of liminal space. تذكر النصوص المصرية القديمة واﻹيقونغرافية ان كل من الحيوانات واﻵدميين (اﻷقزام ( والرجال والنساء واﻷطفال ظھروا فى النقوش) وأرواح << يب >> والمتوفيين (الملك أو ( أحد العامة) والملك أثناء تمثيله لﻹله وكذلك اﻵلھة اﻷخرى كانوا جميعاً يمارسون الرقص. تعرض ھنا مشاكل التعريف والتقسيم وأيضاً فھم دور الرقص بمصر القديمة. ويتركز محور المقالة حول الراقص وما يقوم به من رقص. ويتناول كل قسم أحد المواضيع اﻵتية: الراقص، ظروف الرقص، مكان الرقص، والمكان التخيلي الذي ينتجه الرقص. بعض اﻷمثلة تعطى ھنا لتوضيح ھذه النقاط اﻷربع في السياقات الطبيعة والسياقات الملكية والجنائزية والسياقات المتعلقة باﻹحتفاﻻت الدينية. وآخيراً يتم مناقشة التحاليل المصرية القديمة للرقص. ccording to ancient Egyptian standing on one leg with the other leg bent at sources, contexts in which dance the knee. Nevertheless, the iconographical A occurs spontaneously, or is sources show both male and female dancers, performed according to traditional ideas, and in a variety of contexts. Without include sunrise, banquets, funerals, the exception dancers who appear in pairs or afterlife, joyousness, royal ceremonies, and groups are of the same gender. Their religious festivals. The most common noun representation is abundant on reliefs and wall for “dance” is jbAw, which was used paintings in the tombs of private individuals continuously from as early as the Old from the Old Kingdom to the end of the New Kingdom, where it is found in the Pyramid Kingdom. Dancers of non-Egyptian origin are Texts, through the Ptolemaic Period, where a prominent feature in processions of the 18th we find it featured in temple inscriptions. The Dynasty. A Ramesside ostracon bears a determinative of the verb, and of the satirical illustration of dance. Textual sources corresponding noun (“dancer”), is a man Dance, Meyer-Dietrich, UEE 2009 1 Figure 1. Dancers configured in opposing rows. Tomb of Antefoker and his wife Senet, Thebes. for dance in religious ritual dominate in the performance, sometimes choosing to depict Ptolemaic temples. the extreme position of a movement, the body bent back, the legs spread in a split, and the The study of dance in ancient Egypt arms stretched to the utmost. Ultimately, presents problems of classification, whether dance movements should be representation, and interpretation. We do not understood as synchronic or diachronic possess sufficient information to construct a representations of actions remains an typology of dance in terms of distinctive unsolved problem. According to pictorial movements and rhythms. Although 18 representations, dancers were configured different verbs for “to dance” are attested either in linear relationships—that is, dancing according to the references given in the toward each other in opposite rows (fig. 1)— Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (http://aaew.bbaw. or in pairs (fig. 2). Solo dancers are rarely de/tla/), the terminology applied to dance depicted. escapes our comprehension, and the association between terms and selected Aspects of tempo and rhythm are not easily movements is often obscure. Only a few interpreted. Textual “commentary” can names for body postures are attested. Extant sometimes be enlightening. In the tomb artifacts (figurines in a dance posture) are chapel of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan, for sparse. The “frozen” postures and gestures instance, the text adjoining a representation of depicted on reliefs do not allow for the dancers reads “wind” (BH 3, west wall; reconstruction of a dancer’s movements or Newberry 1893: pl. 29). Comments like this the composition and tempo of those may indicate that the dance movements movements. Nonetheless, some scholars have portrayed were performed with speed. An tried to deduce dance movements from important aspect in regard to rhythm is the gestures and body postures seen in Egyptian concept of “chironomy”—a memory aid representations of dance. Postures have been through which rhythm is reflected by hand interpreted as the dancer’s successive steps in movements that count the beat. In the Old a dance sequence (Brunner-Traut 1938; Kingdom clapping and percussion Kinney 2008; Lexová 1935), as if the artist instruments were used to set the beat. In the tried to catch a certain moment of the New Kingdom, when there appears to have Dance, Meyer-Dietrich, UEE 2009 2 Figure 2. Dancers configured in pairs. Tomb of Zau, Deir el-Gabrawi. been a greater variety of instruments, new floor. In addition to their operationality as types of rhythm instruments may have picture-acts, representations can be influenced the beat and the tempo of a understood in an art-historical context—that performance. is, in terms of their dependency on earlier or contemporary representations with regard to The uncertain connection between dance theme, composition, and style. These factors and music renders the interpretation of reliefs of “interpictoriality” are well demonstrated in and paintings difficult. In representations the artistic development of the wall paintings before the 18th Dynasty the dancers are not in the Middle Kingdom tombs of Beni Hassan integrated in musical scenes; rather, they are (Shedid 1994) and in the Theban tombs from depicted in a separate register. It is therefore the time of Amenhotep II (Shedid 1988). not evident whether their dance is actually accompanied by the instrumental music. Even Artifacts associated with dance have in depictions in which a musician is shown survived as ceremonial objects and as gifts for with a dancer, it is not clear whether the the tomb owner. These valued objects musician accompanies the dancer (musically) possessed several layers of meaning. While or whether the two are engaged in a dialog musical instruments, dresses, mirrors, jewelry, (Chernoff 1979: 55). headgear, ribbons, braid-weights, boomerangs, and sticks might be endowed The intended purpose of the representation with meaning based on their commissioning of dance and its interdependence with the and design, the materials used in their history of religion and the history of art production, methods of their use, and even complicates the exploration of developments possibly the professional experience of the in dance. The function of an image might associated musicians, they revealed symbolic have been that of a “picture-act” operating as performance-related power when employed in a virtual performance. In a religious context, it a dance context. This is especially clear with appears that certain, select dance movements regard to multifunctional objects and parts of were typically displayed in the iconography the human body. Hair, for example, appears (Seidlmayer 2001: 246). However, artistic to have taken on additional meaning when conventions might have rendered the depicted associated with dance, as is underscored by body postures less concurrent with reality. amagical text, according to which “the one Junker (1940: 40) points out that, in the Giza who dances without hair” must suffer at the mastaba of Kaiemankh (G 4561), it is in place of the crocodile (i.e., suffer a terrible accordance with artistic conventions for the fate) (Genève MAH 15274: recto 5, 8; expression of formal events that the musicians translation by Massart 1957: 172 - 185). are depicted standing instead of sitting on the Dance, Meyer-Dietrich, UEE 2009 3 Literary evidence that the same complexity of meaning was valid for ceremonial objects is provided by the story of the birth of the royal children in Papyrus Westcar. In this narrative, a group of gods in the guise of traveling dancers reached the house where the royal children were to be born. There “they held out [to the distraught landlord] their necklaces and sistra.” Having thereby assured the landlord of their competence as midwives they were allowed